A Florida church that had been providing free meals, showers, and clean clothes to people experiencing homelessness has sharply scaled back its outreach after Sarasota County alleged that the ministry violated residential zoning rules, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.
The move may ease tensions in one neighborhood, but it also cuts off basic support for as many as 130 people a day, underscoring how communities can end up further from long-term solutions when housing needs and local services collide.
Here's what to know
On Aug. 26, county code enforcement told Remnant Church of Sarasota that its outreach was operating as a social-service use barred in a single-family residential area, prompting the church to cut much of the program.
Before the cutback, the church's Remnant Cafe at its Ashton Road campus provided free coffee, meals, showers and clean clothes. Many people reached the church by public bus or on a church bus from downtown Sarasota.
Tammy Burns, director of the homeless outreach program, told the Herald-Tribune the ministry served about 100 to 130 people before services stopped.
Only limited meal service connected to Bible study and worship will continue, while the wider daytime outreach is ending.
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"We can serve a meal but we can't do showers, we can't do laundry," Burns acknowledged.
"We can't do any of those kinds of services and part of our impact comes from spending time with people and pouring into their lives."
More background
The zoning dispute followed years of complaints from residents of the nearby Ashton Enclave condo community.
Residents claimed people experiencing homelessness in the area had trespassed, slept under porches, and left human waste nearby.
Christine Nordstrom, an Ashton Enclave resident and founder of Five-O Donut Co., said her objection was to placing that kind of service in a residential neighborhood, not to homelessness itself.
"Homeless people themselves are not a problem, the problem is the behaviors that are attached to drawing this type of social services into our residential neighborhood," Nordstrom stated.
Burns said the church had understood the outreach to be protected as part of its religious mission.
"It is part of our faith to care for the needy and homeless and the poor," Burns explained. "We have always done it under that and had no idea that we had a problem, that we were breaking any type of a code, because that's what we've always been told."
What's being done?
The church says it will serve meals only during church activities, including Wednesdays starting Sept. 9 and Saturdays.
Burns warned that ending those services will not make homelessness disappear.
County officials claimed the church could try to come into compliance by first seeking commercial zoning and then a special exception for the outreach, a process that would involve public hearings before the county's planning and county commissions, the outlet reported.
Otherwise, according to the Herald-Tribune, the matter could move to a code-enforcement hearing before a special magistrate.
"What Remnant needs to understand is that there are consequences to their intentions," Nordstrom said.
Where can I learn more?
Similar disputes are unfolding elsewhere as communities argue over where services for unhoused people belong and what those efforts should look like.
In each case below, officials, residents, and nonprofits are taking very different approaches to feeding, sheltering, or pushing away unhoused people.
• At a public park, officials barred a nonprofit from hosting free picnics for people experiencing homelessness.
• In Wilmington, North Carolina, tiny homes for people facing homelessness offered longer-term stability.
• In Lakewood, New Jersey, officials removed trees from Town Square as a deterrent to unhoused people.
Each example underscores the same basic question: who gets to decide where aid can happen.
That broader context helps explain what is at stake in Sarasota County's dispute with Remnant Church.
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